Massachusetts Migrant Crisis Part 1: The Takeover of Taunton’s Only Hotel

This is part one of a three-part series covering the migrant crisis in the south coast of Massachusetts. At the time of this reporting, veterans in Massachusetts did not have priority in the emergency shelters over newly arrived woman with children from other countries. As the daughter of a veteran who saw my father get very little support, that didn’t settle well with me.

Last summer, I was a radio talk show host in New Bedford when the migrant crisis first hit Massachusetts. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had sent 50 migrants to swanky Martha’s Vineyard the September before as a token of appreciation to all the Democratic run states for their support of the Biden administration’s dismantling of the southern border. But no sooner had the Williams Sonoma bags of Vineyard Vines hand-me-downs and Hermes blankets reached the migrants when the unannounced visitors were swept away in the Indian Summer breeze, never to be heard from again.

I remember reading island officials saying they simply didn’t have the resources to keep those 50 homeless people on the island. I jumped on AirBnb and found over 40 rentals available to rent island wide; it was the off-season, after all. The state could easily have rented any one of those coastal homes, at market rates nonetheless, and found them jobs in the tourist industry in the spring. Alas, it just wasn’t meant to be: no MV stickers for you, Mister Border Jumper.

But it was this past May when the official wave of new migrants reached our shores in the Bay State. I quickly learned that the Clarion Hotel in Taunton had been turned into one of the first shelters for the mostly Haitian migrants that had been sent here by the federal government. I think that part still makes me pause: the federal government flew batches of people who crossed the border right into Logan Airport. Tens of thousands of people. Absolutely wild.

I was on the radio six days a week back then and it was all anyone wanted to talk about. Listeners would call into the show nightly to share their frustrations about tax dollars being spent on the migrants when they themselves were struggling. Gas prices were approaching $5 a gallon at the time, 401Ks were tanking and people were angry. Callers would call into every show venting their frustrations on how they could use the free housing, they could use the free healthcare. Many people would call and talk about our Veterans and how they deserved more: more housing, more services, more money.

The Clarion Hotel in Taunton is only a 20-minute drive from my home and that, partnered with my sheer curiosity of what a modern-day migrant looked like, had me in my car heading to the Clarion within a few days of their arrival. I walked into the hotel and went straight to the front desk clerk. I told her I was a reporter, and I wanted to learn more about what was going on at the hotel. She immediately told me the hotel was closed to the public and that she had no comment. In my best Karen voice, I asked to speak with the manager, who emerged from a back office and came around the counter. She gently told me that no one there was going to be speaking with me and with her arm, guided me towards the door. On my way out, I noticed piles of suitcases and bags lining the hallway, children running through the lobby, a toddler in a stroller on a tablet.

In the parking lot, I saw a gathering of Haitian men and figured I would see if anyone there wanted to tell me about their story of coming to America. I had just started to connect with them when the front desk clerk came running out. She told me I couldn’t talk to them, and I asked her if her desk job included being a spokesperson for migrants. “Why are you acting like their handler?” I asked her.

She looked at the men and told them “no” in a firm voice. I pulled out my phone and started to look for a translator app so I could communicate better, but desk-Nazi was becoming more animated. She told me if I didn’t leave the property, she would call the police. I got in my car and headed for the parking lot exit, passing the group of men on my way out. One winked at me as I drove past.

A month later, I was hearing stories out of the hotel from people in Taunton. A bus driver who visited the hotel daily told me that he saw a migrant carry a new-in-box 60-inch television into the hotel and that, quite frankly, was something I needed to confirm. Where does a migrant get the money for that luxury? I remember when I got my 60-inch television a few years earlier. I used my tax refund and got mine at Walmart.

I went back to the Clarion for a second time and things were pretty different. This time, there was a sign on the front door saying the hotel was closed to the public. Noted.

I walked in and saw a police officer standing in the lobby. I approached him and identified myself as a radio host/reporter. I told him I was trying to shoot my shot with the hotel and ask if they would give me some access to the operations of the building as a shelter and he offered to talk to the staff for me. You can guess how that went.

I was escorted out of the building back to the parking lot, but before I left, I was able to ask the officer how he came to be there. He told me that the hotel now had a police officer on site 24/7. Naturally, I needed to know why.

I learned that the City of Taunton was also suing the hotel for unpaid fees after the hotel was operating over occupancy since the property began housing migrants for the state. I reached out to the office of Mayor Shaunna O’Connell for more information. I wrote a story about what I learned, and you can read it here, but the takeaway was that there was a need for an officer on-site. The city provided the officers, and the hotel paid for them. Aside from the on-site officer, there was still a need for emergency services to the hotel. I found that there had been a 700% increase in the number of calls to the hotel since the migrants were placed there. Clearly, it was a costly endeavor.

Thank goodness the hotel was locked into a multi-million-dollar deal with the state so they could pay that tab.

Next up, migrants arrive Somerset.